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In time for Chinese New Year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
Holding cup atop a crate of books.

In past years, we’ve had Chinese college students stay with us during their term breaks. They were in Dover and nearby communities to work volunteer internships, usually a month long, and the New Hampshire Children’s Museum was a popular choice.

They would often bring a gift, typically fine green tea, but this one initially perplexed me until it was pointed out that it’s a holding cup for things like pens and pencils and is inscribed with four popular poems.

Cynthia later transcribed them, with translations in English.

She had no idea I am a poet, or that her gift would be so appropriate.

With the Chinese New Year on Friday, we’ll be thinking of her and the others who have brightened our household.

Here’s what she wrote out:

Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Page Four
And the cup itself, all forming a kind of scroll here.

Ten favorite places

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This round, I’m sticking close to home – places I return to.

  1. My studio and loft.
  2. Our Smoking Garden and adjacent fern beds, in season.
  3. Our 1768 Quaker meetinghouse.
  4. Dover’s indoor swimming pool downtown and its Olympic-size sister outdoors in Guppey Park, Portland Avenue. Gee, does that mean there’s actually a locker room or two as part of my favorites list? Let’s not slight the long, hot showers.
  5. Annunciation Greek-Orthodox church. Visually stunning interior, for starters, and some fine folks.
  6. Sander’s Theater at Harvard. Think of Shakespeare’s Globe and start adding on things like a ceiling.
  7. The Maine coast, from the Isles of Shoals on up. Could lead to its own Tendrils entry.
  8. The Community Trail running through town and out along the river.
  9. The waterfalls downtown. Always changing.
  10. Lickee’s and Chewy’s Candies & Creamery in the Cocheco Millworks.

~*~

Tell us something about one of your own favorites.